


Cold Hands

by deathwave1



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 12:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8285648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwave1/pseuds/deathwave1
Summary: Carmilla is cold. Until she isn't. (Spoilers for S3 and the series finale)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what this is, honestly. I just have a lot of feelings about the finale and I had to write something.

The first time you notice it, you're fighting.

That’s about all you do, really. She’s stealing Betty’s clothes again, and while you can ignore it for the most part, catching her stealing your cookies is really the last straw. You go off on her, all the pent-up frustration from your (completely fruitless) research and confusion from whatever is happing with Danny pouring out in an admittedly harsh verbal attack on your brooding roommate.

She just stands there and takes it. Well, kind of. She stands there with her eyes rolled so far back she almost looks dead. Eventually, in a last-ditch attempt to actually get a reaction (even her usual snark would be more satisfying than silence), you make as if to shove her lightly.

Faster than you can blink, her hands are wrapped around your wrists, holding your hands in place like a vise. They’re a little too tight, and maybe you should be focused on the slight pain it causes, but you pay more attention to how her skin feels against yours.

Her skin is soft, which doesn’t surprise you. Of course her skin is soft, just like her hair is perfect and her eyes are a deep, mysterious brown and–

Really not the point right now.

Her palms are soft on your wrists, but they aren’t warm. They’re cold. Freezing. You swear it feels like there’s ice being pumped through her veins. It sends a shiver down your spine, and you stumble over your words as you try to keep ranting. You think Carmilla notices, judging by the way one corner of her mouth smirks slightly.

It makes you even angrier.

You jerk your arms out of her hands and rub at the red marks on your wrists, glaring at her. For a moment, you think something shifts in her eyes. That cold facade slips and you think you can see centuries in her eyes. Then the cold is back and she just mutters a nearly silent, “Sorry, cupcake,” before slipping out of the room.

You’re left tracing the places her cold hands touched you with your fingertips and wondering what, exactly, just happened.

  
XxX 

You notice it again after you learn the truth.

It makes sense now; she’s as cold as death because, well, she’s dead. That doesn't make it any less strange, though. There’s so much life in Carmilla still, hidden behind apathy and a severe guilt complex. You see it flashing in her eyes when she snarks at LaF and Perry and Danny. You hear it in her voice as she talks about Ell; death could never hold that much pain. It’s in her crooked grin, the one she gives you when you’re ranting about something you’re passionate about (usually Doctor Who). There’s life in the way she moves, fluidly and with ease from three hundred years of practice, but still with the occasional misstep. There’s life reflected in her eyes when she gazes up at the stars she loves so much. There is an abundance of life in Carmilla, and you can’t quite reconcile that with the image of her, eighteen years old and dressed as a medieval countess, bloody and dead.

When she holds you up against her and waltzes you around the room, you decide you don’t mind the cold that much. Oh, you can feel it. It seems to pour from every inch of her skin, through her clothes (not that there’s very much of them. She’s dressed in a thin, lacy shirt that stops halfway down her stomach and extremely tight pants. It's very distracting and you are very gay), sinking into you and sending shivers down your spine. You had never liked the cold when you were younger, but you’re beginning to think that maybe you could learn to, as long as said cold is coming from Carmilla.

You just wish it felt right. Carmilla isn’t cold, not in the figurative sense. She acts it, with her apathy and bitterness, but you’ve seen beyond that and you know that underneath, she is far softer than she pretends. Hurt, yes. Bitter, yes. But that softness is there, and she is warm. She is kind in a backhanded way, and she looks at you sometimes like you are a fragile and precious thing. Her gaze is warm, and her words are too, even when they sound rough. So maybe you’ve learned to live with the cold, and maybe you’re even learning to like it, but it just doesn’t feel right and you’re afraid it never will.

  
XxX 

You notice it most when she kisses you for the first time.

She cuts you off mid-rant, which normally pisses you off, but she cuts you off with her lips so you don’t really mind. When she pulls away, your brain short-circuits and autopilot kicks in. You keep ranting, because you can hardly believe this is real life, but her hands are cold on your face and they keep you grounded in reality. Her slight smile is the softest you’ve ever seen it, untainted by bitterness or grief or guilt or any of the other demons that haunt her. Her eyes are so warm you can almost feel them burning holes through you.

Yet, when she kisses you again, her lips are cold.

You don’t care, of course. The cold stopped bothering you ages ago, and it’s Carmilla and you think you might be falling in love with her. You almost appreciate how the chill makes your whole body tingle with goosebumps (although that might just be the fact that _Carmilla_ is kissing you). Still, it feels wrong somehow. Not the kissing. That feels more right than anything you’ve ever experienced.

No, it’s not the kissing. It’s the cold. The cold simply doesn’t belong.

  
XxX 

You notice it the least when you’re dying in her arms.

There’s probably some kind of sad irony there. The gates to Hell are open in front of you, and the world is about to end, and _this_ is when things finally feel completely, totally right. The heat pouring from the doors is making you sweat (although that’s the least of your problems), but it’s making Carmilla feel almost warm. The cold that has never quite left her is almost gone. Her skin is warmer than you’ve ever felt, probably warmer than it’s been since 1698.

You can hear her talking to you, and maybe you should be listening to her. Her last words to you are probably important. But you’re focused on her face, trying to memorize every last inch, burning into your retinas the way her eyes look as they reflect the flames of Hades. A tear-stained and heartbroken Carmilla isn’t what you’d prefer for your last image of her, but her outside is as warm as the rest of her for once and you want nothing more than to lie here in her arms for the rest of your life.

So you do.

  
XxX 

The first thing you notice when you live for the second time isn’t the sudden lack of hellfire, or the very much alive and not possessed Perry quickly vacating the room with LaFontaine, or even the sound of Carmilla crying softly. No, the first thing you notice is that Carmilla’s hands are holding you up, and you can feel their heat, practically searing into your back. You look up at her face and her eyes are like melted chocolate, so full of warmth, and she’s smiling through her tears and you can feel yourself fall in love with her all over again.

Her lips are chapped when you kiss her. They’re dry and cracked and probably shouldn’t feel as good as they do. But they’re warm, the way the life inside Carmilla is warm, and you nearly cry as well because finally, every last thing feels so perfectly right.

Carmilla has never been cold, after all. She is rough, yes. She is made of torn edges and hidden pain, filled with puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit and words that never come out quite right. But she is not cold. She is warm and gentle and kind in the ways that matter.

And, you realize as you press a hand to her chest and feel a familiar beat that isn’t at all familiar coming from her ( _bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum_ ), she is _alive_.


End file.
